Musings on Higurashi
by Isae
Summary: My thoughts on various aspects of Higurashi no Naku Koro ni.
1. A Matsuribayashi-hen Critique

**A**** Matsuribayashi-hen Critique**

I'd like to start out by saying that I do _not_ hate Matsuribayashi-hen. I like it. That said, I do have some issues with it. The main ones are as follows:

* * *

**1. Hanyuu**

I guess all those times in Minagoroshi-hen when Rika and Hanyuu said that she couldn't take physical form, what they _really_ meant was that she didn't feel like it. Even if I do accept that Hanyuu suddenly has a body now, I still have questions. Lots and lots of questions.

How did they sign her up for school? Who is her legal guardian? Where do people think she lives (Not Rika and Satoko's house; she lives there in the anime but not the VN.)? In physical form, does Hanyuu still taste what Rika tastes? If so, does it work the other way around, too?

And while most of the villagers might not think much about it, the Sonozaki and Kimiyoshi families, at least, would know full well that Rika doesn't have any living relatives. Wait'll the Sonozaki family investigates Hanyuu and finds out that she literally appeared out of nowhere!

Just kidding. That'll never happen, because no one ever thinks there's anything weird about Hanyuu. Even when she suddenly appears and talks to Oishi while he's in the middle of a secret meeting. Even the multiple times she or Rika say something odd in the presence of their friends, no one ever asks about it or thinks it strange. It just doesn't happen.

So you see, it's not just Hanyuu sudden appearance that bothers me. It's also how any and all complications that her appearance would cause are completely ignored.

By the way, does Hanyuu's backstory actually make sense to anyone else? If so, maybe you can explain it to me.*

* * *

**2. Rika's Memory Loss**

So Rika has forgotten the events of Minagoroshi-hen for no reason. At first I thought maybe it was for suspense purposes, but aside from the moment when we first find out about it, it doesn't really provide any suspense. So I'm at a complete loss as to what the point is.

...Only joking, of course. There is a proper reason Rika has forgotten Minagoroshi-hen: So that Hanyuu can take the lead in this arc. Now, in and of itself, there's nothing wrong with having Hanyuu take the lead. But if the only way you can think of to accomplish that is by having Rika forget the events of the single most important arc to her character growth, then maybe it's not such a good idea.

Also, how did it take Hanyuu and Rika so long to realize that she had lost her memories? Like, what exactly did they say to each other when they first came to this world?

* * *

**3. The Finale**

So after Okonogi tells Takano to shoot herself, Takano runs off and comes across Hanyuu. What I don't get is what Hanyuu is even doing here in the first place. Sure, she forgives Takano, but if you think about it, that doesn't really do anything. Takano's still going to be punished when she gets caught, and she doesn't even so much as _feel_ better for being forgiven. Hanyuu's forgiving Takano has no effect whatsoever.

So, basically...Hanyuu puts her friends (and herself) in danger for no reason.

Speaking of those friends, they've come looking for her and now Takano's pointing her gun at them. (Hey, wait, why didn't Akasaka come with them? He was with them just a second ago!) Hanyuu heroically steps in front of the gun (except they wouldn't even be in this situation if she hadn't run off in the first place). Hanyuu has already died once, so even if she died here, couldn't she just come back again?

Anyways, let's now skip to the part where Rika grabs the bullet and says stuff. She says something like, "This world doesn't need any losers. This is the answer that Furude Rika has arrived at after pursuing a miracle for a thousand years." (I thought it was a hundred years?**)

Wait a minute.

Rika has given zero indication until this moment that she gave half a flip about Takano, but all of a sudden a "world without losers" is Rika's ultimate answer to everything?

I'm sorry, but I don't buy it.

Like, imagine if Hanyuu hadn't run off. Was Rika still planning on doing something-or-other to help Takano in order to make it a loserless world? I doubt it. This conclusion of Rika's is just so...haphazard.

...My overall point is that I wish the finale made more sense.

And actually, there's even more things about the finale that bother me, but since those things mostly have to do with Hanyuu's backstory (which I don't understand anyway), I'll go ahead and shut up.

(*You might say that Hanyuu's backstory isn't supposed to make sense. Alright, let's say it's not supposed to. It's just there to add a bit of mystery to the arc. Fair enough. But then why would you have the finale have so much to do with it? Is the finale not supposed to make sense either? ...If so, mission accomplished, I guess.)

(**Maybe she meant a thousand years in the Umineko sense...?)


	2. Regarding Rei

**Regarding Rei**

I don't hate Rei/Saikoroshi-hen either. Honest.

* * *

-Well, first there's the obvious question: If this takes place after Matsuribayashi-hen, then why is Hanyuu back to being an invisible entity?

-In the new world Rika goes to, the Dam War didn't happen. They didn't have the Yamainu and Tokyo secretly backing them up, so maybe Hinamizawa would have lost even if there was a Dam War, but I find it hard to believe that they didn't put up any fight _at all._

-Also, wasn't the establishment of the school Rika goes to strongly related to the Dam War? If the Dam War didn't happen, I get the feeling Rika would most likely be going to school in Okinomiya. Well, whatever.

-No one likes Rika. Or rather, everyone is indifferent towards Rika. Now, I thought the villagers were supposed to instinctively dote on Rika because she's the Queen Carrier. Did Takano Hifumi _cure_ Hinamizawa Syndrome or something? That _would_ help explain why the Dam War didn't take place. But wait! He cured it without anyone finding out about it? "Here, everyone in the village needs to have a shot. Oh, no reason." Or maybe the older villagers do know about it, but they just don't talk about it? Hmm. And why does Rika never think about any of this stuff? She takes it as though it all makes perfect sense.

-When Rika talks to Hanyuu through the crystal ball, Hanyuu tells her that she died. But at the end, it turns out Rika was just in a coma. So either Hanyuu was lying, or she has the ability to bring Rika back to life in the same world. Which is it?

-Rika's mom is the Reincarnation of Oyashiro-sama. When she tells Rika, she mentions that it's a secret. Why is it a secret? And more importantly, _how_ is it a secret? She says the elders of the village used to dote on her because they believed it. How can _all _of those people be dead already? Rika's mom doesn't look that old (well, in the anime/manga)! Sonozaki Oryou and Kimiyoshi Kiichirou would know, at least. Are they both dead? Who's leading the village?

-So the Hanyuu in this world half-assedly "went to sleep" (or whatever) before Rika's mom's life was even over. Does that mean that Rika's Hanyuu was/is planning to do that with Rika too?

-In Rika's last conversation with Hanyuu before she goes back to her original world, Hanyuu says a lot of things that I either disagree with or don't understand. But I'm not going to go into those things, because I'd have to discuss what she says line-by-line, and I'm too lazy. Besides, I don't even have the English translation of the game.

-One of the things Hanyuu says is that this world will be destroyed if Rika chooses her original world. But...why would it be destroyed? Sure, it might be ruined for Rika's family, but everyone else's lives will still go on, won't they? Unless the unchosen world, like, merges with the chosen world somehow? I'm so confused.

-Heh, looks like Rika's "irreplaceable" friends were replaceable after all. (Satoshi and "Reina" seem more or less the same, but Satoko is practically a different person. And "Mion" actually _is_ a different person!) Sure, she ends up choosing her original world, but the reason it was such a hard decision is because she considered the choices to be of equal value.

-Back in the original world, the club members all seem to know each other's secrets, for some reason. I find it unlikely that at some point they decided to have a secret-sharing party, especially considering Mion's whole "it's okay to have secrets" stance in Tsumihoroboshi-hen.

-About Rena's thing with the candies. I get what she's trying to say, but what would she have said if Rika picked the hand with two candies? "Well, imagine if you had picked the other hand..."

-Hanyuu regrets keeping Rika alive with her powers. The main reason for that is apparently because it caused Rika to stop respecting her parents. Well, Hanyuu, she wouldn't respect her parents if she were dead, either. She would just be dead.

-Also, Hanyuu doesn't care if Rika dies anymore, because she has a "new friend." I tell you, Hanyuu's love for Rika is just overflowing in Saikoroshi-hen.

-Oh yeah, one more thing, which probably only bothers me (In fact, all of the above might only bother me). The whole "sea of fragments" thing, in the original 8 arcs, seemed to me to be only a device used to explain things to and interact with the reader, giving the reader the freedom to take it as part of the actual story or not. (In Umineko it's different, but I'm not talking about Umineko.) So, in Saikoroshi-hen, seeing elements of the "sea of fragments" discussed _in the story proper_ kind of annoys me, because it takes away that freedom.


	3. On Cannibalism

**On Cannibalism**

*Grossness warning*

* * *

You know, given Hinamizawa's history of cannibalism, I'm almost surprised no one ended up _eating _anyone else during the course of the story. By the way, if someone were to eat someone, I think it would be Shion. And I think she'd eat Satoko.

Why? Well, first of all, Shion knows all about the town's history of cannibalism, so it wouldn't be unusual for her to at least hit on the idea. Second, after killing Satoko, Shion decides she's a demon beyond redemption. At this point in the story, I could definitely see her eating human flesh to further prove it. Third, it would be deliciously ironic (and show how much she's changed), given that the whole reason Shion wouldn't eat canned foods is because Kasai told her an urban legend about canned foods sometimes containing human flesh.

So why Satoko in particular? Well, Shion has already thrown her grandmother down the well, so she can't eat her. Besides, both Oryou and Kimiyoshi are old and tough, and probably wouldn't make good eating anyway. If I remember right, Rika has already been thrown down the well, too. Even if she hadn't been, Shion injected Rika with the unknown liquid Rika brought. She might be safe to eat, but then again she might not. I don't think Shion would risk it. That leaves Satoko.

And I know I said "eat Satoko" as though she would eat her whole, but I don't think she would. She'd eat just enough to show herself and Mion what a demon she had become. Then she'd laugh and talk about how she was going to kill Keiichi and eat him too while Mion watched.

See? Everything comes together uncomfortably well. And now that I'm feeling vaguely ill, I'll go ahead and bring this chapter to a close.


End file.
